Crazy Apple News Site

Every Friday we publish a list of inFrequently Asked Questions and answers to help you, the Crazy Apple user, get more out of your Crazy Apple products.

This week: all of the SSB’s you could handle, all in one go!

Q: What’s an SSB?

A: Depending on who you ask, it’s either a Site Specific Browser or a Single Site Browser.

Q: Which means…

A: A fad. Travel with me back through the mists of time to 2007…

Q: What? No!, hey, I said I’d never go back! Stop it… Oh, we’re there.

A: Yes. As you can see, the world is still prosperous and people are still willing to support any open source project, no matter how idiotic.

Q: *Sigh* Were we really ever so carefree?

A: Yes. Now, here at Mozilla headquarters, they are about to begin a board meeting to discuss a new product called Mozilla Prism, which lets you “split” one web app off of the main web, much like a non-Mozilla prism splits white light into many colors

Mozilla Stormtrooper 1: Hey, you’re not allowed in the board meeting!

Mozilla Bartender: No Blasters!

Q: Shouldn’t we run?

A: Didn’t you read the iFAQ? he’s a Stormtrooper. He can’t hit us. (Blaster fire continues around the principle characters as they talk)

Q: Oh, yeah, right.

A: Anyway, when people who made browsers started noticing that there were websites that were more like applications than just collections of pages, they thought it would be awesome if you could a have a program that let you interact with these “web apps” just like desktop apps. So they started creating said programs. Generally, you would give the program an URL, and it would give you back a stripped down browser with the site’s favicon as the browser’s icon.

Q: … Why?

A: Apparently they felt that when some people need their MySpace fix¹ they can’t take all the time needed to open a regular browser and click on a bookmark.

Q: Yes, I can see how that might take…three seconds.

A: Indeed. So SSB’s were born. And since they were introduced as a TLA² people instantly decided to split into two groups about what “SSB” stands for.

Q: So what does it stand for?

A: Every human’s right to surf the web as they please!

Q: …. That was a joke, was it?

A: Look, I already answered that question at the beginning of the iFAQ.

Q: Ah, but the beginning of the iFAQ is in 2009, and we’re still in 2007! And we still have this storm trooper shooting at us.

Mozilla Stormtrooper: Die, semi-closed-semi-open-source Apple scum!

A: Right, right. Okay, back to 2009 we go.

Q: Thank you. So what happened to SSBs in the meanwhile?

A: They’re still out there, but all the open source support has been shifted to slightly less trendy projects. And making closed-source iPhone apps that do the exact same thing, then selling them for 99 cents.

Q: Makes “cents”. Hee hee hee.

Mozilla Stormtrooper: [Fires a 'stun' blast]

Q: [falls down]

MS: He’ll be all right. Inform Lady Baker that we found a pun-maker.

1. remember, this is 2007 [↩]
2. “Three letter acronym”. Unless you think it’s “Three-letter-abbreviation” [↩]